As Piyush Goyal gets entrusted with the new responsibilities at Textile ministry, a bureaucrat-turned-entrepreneur-turned politician Ashwini Vaishnaw has been awarded the leading role at Railway Ministry in the Wednesday cabinet reshuffle. A look at Piyush Goyal’s glaring tenure, which turned around the Railway Ministry like never before, would be sufficient to acknowledge the tedious task Minister Vaishnaw has been entrusted with. That a first time minister has been asked to fill the shoes of Prime Minister Modi’s cabinet top performer Piyush Goyal, Ashwini Vaishnaw must have got a bustling career that made PM Modi choose him over others.
The appointment of Ashwini Vaishnaw as the nation’s new Railway minister goes on to further prove one important aspect of Modi’s cabinet- Performance matters the most. The 50-years-old Rajya Sabha MP is a 1994 batch IAS officer, who has previously worked for the Vajpayee PMO and is well known for his contribution towards the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework in the infrastructure sector. He also implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) software at Goa Port. When Vajpayee lost his Prime Ministership in the following years, Vaishnaw continued serving him in the capacity of his personal secretary. After serving 15 years as a bureaucrat, Vaishnaw made his debut in the corporate world.
“His work in the logistics sector while working for GE and Siemens and his forte in integrating IT with logistics and how to force-multiply was what has worked in his favour,” said a top official quoted by Economic Times. As per the official, the hunt was on for the person having hands-on experience.
2019 was the year when Vaishnaw was taken to the Parliament as a Rajya Sabha MP from Odisha. Owing to the magnificent excellence that Vaishnaw bestowed to the party’s leadership, it took him just 6 years to reach where he sits today.
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He has an MBA from the Wharton School, Pennsylvania University. Vaishnaw completed his MTech from IIT-Kanpur after pursuing BTech in electronics and communications that further makes him the most preferred candidate to lead the foremost ministry of the central government.
After assuming the charge, Vaishnaw has vowed to continue his predecessor’s enticing legacy to ease the people’s lives through railways. The latest reshuffle in the cabinet proves that “Performance” is what matters the most for the country’s current leadership. By entrusting the young parliamentarian with the arduous task, PM Modi has bestowed his confidence in the young leaders of the country. Under Vaishnaw’s able leadership, the ministry is expected to further achieve important milestones that could not be realised under his predecessors.